This was business, and the look that involuntarily leaped into Mr. Goodman’s eye proved that he considered it so. He did not otherwise betray this feeling, however, but turned quite calmly toward a chair, into which he slowly settled himself before replying:
“And why do you not ask the gentleman himself where he was? He probably would be quite ready to tell you.”
The inflection he gave to these words warned Mr. Byrd to be careful. The truth was, Mr. Goodman was Mr. Mansell’s best friend, and as such had his own reasons for not being especially communicative in his regard, to this stranger. The detective vaguely felt this, and immediately changed his manner.
“I have no doubt of that, sir,” he ingenuously answered. “But Mr. Mansell has had so much to distress him lately, that I was desirous of saving him from the unpleasantness which such a question would necessarily cause. It is only a small matter, sir. A person—it is not essential to state whom—has presumed to raise the question among the authorities in Sibley as to whether Mr. Mansell, as heir of poor Mrs. Clemmens’ small property, might not have had some hand in her dreadful death. There was no proof to sustain the assumption, and Mr. Mansell was not even known to have been in the town on or after the day of her murder; but justice, having listened to the aspersion, felt bound to satisfy itself of its falsity; and I was sent here to learn where Mr. Mansell was upon that fatal day. I find he was not in Buffalo. But this does not mean he was in Sibley, and I am sure that, if you will, you can supply me with facts that will lead to a complete and satisfactory alibi for him.”
But the hard caution of the other was not to be moved.
“I am sorry,” said he, “but I can give you no information in regard to Mr. Mansell’s travels. You will have to ask the gentleman himself.”
“You did not send him out on business of your own, then?”
“No.”
“But you knew he was going?”
“Yes.”
“And can tell when he came back?”
“He was in his place on Wednesday.”
The cold, dry nature of these replies convinced Mr. Byrd that something more than the sullen obstinacy of an uncommunicative man lay behind this determined reticence. Looking at Mr. Goodman inquiringly, he calmly remarked:
“You are a friend of Mr. Mansell?”
The answer came quick and coldly:
“He is a constant visitor at my house.”
Mr. Byrd made a respectful bow.
“You can, then, have no doubts of his ability to prove an alibi?”
“I have no doubts concerning Mr. Mansell,” was the stern and uncompromising reply.
Mr. Byrd at once felt he had received his dismissal. But before making up his mind to go, he resolved upon one further effort. Calling to his aid his full power of acting, he slowly shook his head with a thoughtful air, and presently murmured half aloud and half, as it were, to himself:
“I thought, possibly, he might have gone to Washington.” Then, with a casual glance at Mr. Goodman, added: “He is an inventor, I believe?”
“Yes,” was again the laconic response.
“Has he not a machine at present which he desires to bring to the notice of some capitalist?”
“I believe he has,” was the forced and none too amiable answer.
Mr. Byrd at once leaned confidingly forward.
“Don’t you think,” he asked, “that he may have gone to New York to consult with someone about this pet hobby of his? It would certainly be a natural thing for him to do, and if I only knew it was so, I could go back to Sibley with an easy conscience.”
His disinterested air, and the tone of kindly concern which he had adopted, seemed at last to produce its effect on his companion. Relaxing a trifle of his austerity, Mr. Goodman went so far as to admit that Mr. Mansell had told him that business connected with his patent had called him out of town; but beyond this he would allow nothing; and Mr. Byrd, baffled in his attempts to elicit from this man any distinct acknowledgment of Mr. Mansell’s whereabouts at the critical time of Mrs. Clemmens’ death, made a final bow and turned toward the door.
It was only at this moment he discovered that Mr. Goodman and himself had not been alone in the room; that curled up in one of the window-seats was a little girl of some ten or twelve years of age, who at the first tokens of his taking his departure slipped shyly down to the floor and ran before him out into the hall. He found her by the front door when he arrived there. She was standing with her hand on the knob, and presented such a picture of childish eagerness, tempered by childish timidity, that he involuntarily paused before her with a smile. She needed no further encouragement.
“Oh, sir, I know about Mr. Mansell!” she cried. “He wasn’t in that place you talk about, for he wrote a letter to papa just the day before he came back, and the postmark on the envelope was Monteith. I remember, because it was the name of the man who made our big map.” And, looking up with that eager zeal which marks the liking of very little folks for some one favorite person among their grown acquaintances, she added, earnestly: “I do hope you won’t let them say anything bad about Mr. Mansell, he is so good.”
And without waiting for a reply, she ran off, her curls dancing, her eyes sparkling, all her little innocent form alive with the joy of having done a kindness, as she thought, for her favorite, Mr. Mansell.
Mr. Byrd, on the contrary, felt a strange pang
